Conventionally, most wireless networks (such as wireless local area networks or WLANs), rely on infrastructure components that establish data communication links with mobile devices. A mobile device communicates, via a wireless data communication channel, with a wireless access device (such as an access point (AP) or access port device), which in turn communicates with other network components via traditional wired interfaces or via wireless backhaul interfaces. These wireless access devices generally communicate with the mobile devices using one or more radio frequency (RF) channels (e.g., in accordance with one or more of the IEEE 802.11 standards). The various 802.11 standards developed by the IEEE are available for download via URL: standards.ieee.org/getieee802/802.11.html; these various standards are hereby incorporated by this reference herein.
Often, it is desirable to balance the load created by the various mobile devices among the access devices in the wireless network. Specifically, the various mobile devices can be able to connect to more than one access device. Some existing techniques use proprietary protocols and/or predefined load criteria, and thus are limited in application to devices, systems, and/or networks compatible with these proprietary protocols or predefined load criteria. These proprietary methods are often inadequate or ineffective, as in most wireless networks, there will be numerous different brands or types of access devices and mobile devices from various manufacturers or vendors.
Additionally, some techniques utilize load advertising in beacons and probe responses, which provides load information from the access devices to a mobile device. The mobile device then determines which access device to connect to for purposes of load balancing, as opposed to the wireless network infrastructure. Thus, the ability of a system designer and/or network administrator to balance the load among access devices is largely dependent on the mobile devices in the wireless network. Furthermore, the administrator of the wireless network is limited in the ability to define or modify the criteria used to balance the load.
There are solutions to maintain mobile unit (MU) load balance across APs. However, these solutions are mostly static in that the load balance check is done at the time when the MU initially associates. These solutions do not attempt to maintain the load balance over time. Network operators often express a desire to maintain the load balance over time, not just at initial MU association. However, it is challenging to achieve dynamic load balancing without negative effects such as, for example, disassociation in the middle of a real-time transmission (e.g., voice, video, etc.).